Written By:
Date Posted: March 5, 2002

OpenGL Benchmarks

Quake 3

    How many people who use computers do not know of Quake?  Not many, and Quake III is no exception, with its high quality graphics it has become a favorite game and due to its graphics its also become a favorite for hardware reviews, why?   It has good graphics that stress the video cards' memory, it also has wide support thanks to the OpenGL engine, and supports Hardware T&L.  So lets look at how all both video cards perform at the three resolutions:

1024*768

1280*1024

1600*1200

    What can we see?  At 1024 both video cards are more CPU limited than fill rate limited with the Kyro II on a 1.2GHz overtaking the VisionTek 6564 on a 750MHz CPU.  At 1280 we see the Kyro II start to become fill rate limited but the GF3 isn't nearly as limited with both overclocking and CPU speed helping it get faster.  1600 is a different story we see the Kyro II is definitely fill rate limited and the VisionTek 6564 is also mostly fill rate limited.  Quake generally shows that that the VisionTek 6564 is 1.5-2.5 times faster than the Kyro II when the at more fill rate limiting resolutions.

MDK2

    MDK 2 is another OpenGl game that uses T&L quite a bit.  The game combines a comic-like look with a great 3D game.  Will the VisionTek 6564 dominate this benchmark as well?  Lets find out:

1024*768

1280*960

1600*1200

       At a resolution of 1024*768 the VisionTek 6564 uses it T&L engine to give it a better score than the Kyro II as an overclocked Kyro II backed with a 1.2GHz CPU almost catches the 750MHz CPU VisionTek 6564 combination.  At 1280*960 both video cards show a little bit of fill rate limitation creeping in, but only on the 1.2GHz CPU's.  At 1600*1200 the Kyro II is totally fillrate limited, yet the VisionTek 6564 isn't totally so.  When overclocked the VisionTek 6564 becomes CPU limited as it moves from 87FPS to 106FPS by using the 1.2GHz CPU.

    Now lets look at some very new games, in the form of Serious Sam 2, and Ballistics, which supports many of the new features of the VisionTek 6564 series.

OpenGL Benchmarks - Continued

Serious Sam 2

    In the first part of 2001 a game was released that combined beautiful graphics with an a lot of enemies for you to shoot down, this game was Serious Sam.  Just recently Serious Sam 2 was released and offers a new level of realism with real looking grass and nice trees and beautiful textures.  It still uses OpenGL but also has support for Direct X, albeit not as fast.  The graphics alone make this game almost fill rate limited right from 1024*768 on.  So lets look at how all both video cards perform at the three resolutions:

1024*768

1280*960

1600*1200

    In this game we see the VisionTek 6564 destroy the Kyro II as at 1024*768 it is 2-3x faster than the fastest Kyro II.  The story doesn't change at all in 1280*960 or 1600*1200, as the VisionTek tramples all over the Kyro II, which isn't even 'playable' at 1024*768.  This game really appreciates any extra fill rate/memory bandwidth that it is give as the VisionTek improves from 30fps to over 40fps by overclocking alone.

Direct X Benchmarks

Ballistics

    Ballistics is a new game that supports many of the features that the VisionTek is capable of using.  The high polygon count of between 20,000 and 110,000 a one time, effects like masked chrome, real time lights, reflections, morphing animations, bump mapping, sparks, explosions, rain, snow and fog give this game high quality graphics and also stress video cards very much.  So lets look at how the VisionTek 6564 handles it:

1024*768

1280*960

1600*1200

       We see the VisionTek is somewhat fill-rate limited at 1024*768 while the Kyro II is fully CPU limited at all resolutions except 1600*1200, as it waits for the CPU to do the instructions that the VisionTek does on the video card.   At 1280*960 the VisionTek 6564 becomes more fill rate limited and becomes more so at 1600*1200, as only using the overclocked card is there any increase.  Throught the game though the Kyro II is not very 'playable' as there are points were it slows right down, even at 1024*768, while the VisionTek doesn't do this until 1600*1200 on some of the speeds.

    We can see that new games love and fully use all the bandwidth and features of the VisionTek 6564 cards which, in comparison to the Kyro II, are playable at 1024*768, while the Kyro II isn't.  The Geforce is the clear winner here, by a large margin.

    Now lets look at some of our favorite Direct X games in Unreal Tournament and Max Payne to see if this domination by the VisionTek 6564 continues.

Direct X Benchmarks - Continued

Unreal Tournament

    The first game based on the Unreal engine was released about the time of Quake II and is still going strong through the improvements in the engine since then.  While this game doesn't contain any T&L instructions and is more or less a Direct X 6.1 game, it is still very much played and still contains very clean and nice graphics despite its age.  So lets look at how the VisionTek stands up to this game:

1024*768

1280*960

1600*1200

    This game is mostly CPU limited but we can see some interesting things.  At 1024*768 the cards are basically CPU limited with the only exception being the Kyro II at 1.2GHz which benefits from overclocking.  At 1280*960 we see that the Kyro II doesn't have enough fill rate power to make this CPU limited but the VisionTek 6564 with double the Pixel power and quadruple the texel fill rate is not even fazed as the resolution increases.  The same thing happens at 1.2GHz with the VisionTek 6564 easily producing 60+ fps at 1600*1200.

Max Payne

    Max Payne was one of the most anticipated games of 2001 and I must say it was a very nice game even though is has a 'cheesy' story line.  The graphics are stunning, with the detail being unbelievable, as you are able to read a subway map in the game.   It truly takes advantage of Direct X 8 and uses T&L and other newer features of current video cards.  As before let us look at how the VisionTek fairs in this tough game.

1024*768

1280*960

1600*1200

    This is definitely one game in which the VisionTek 6564 wins hands down.  At 1024*768 the lowest speed VisionTek 6564 (750MHz, 175/400) beats the fastest Kyro II (1.2GHz, 195/195) by 2.5X.  Besides this all the VisionTek 6564 speeds are able to perform over 60fps at this resolution, with the fastest being 86+ fps.  1280*960 and 1600*1200 show similar patterns as the difference increases from 2.5x at 1024*768 to 3x the speed of the fastest Kyro II at 1600*1200.  While the Kyro II doesn't really become 'playable' at these settings (High, Trilinear) at any resolution, the VisionTek 6564 is 'playable' at most if not all resolutions tested.

So now that we've looked at the benchmarks, what we can conclude about the VisionTek Xtasy 6564?

Conclusion

So let us see what we can conclude about the VisionTek Xtasy 6564 card. Lets start with everyone's favorite, overclocking. The card I picked up from a store, was able to overclock to 245/540 without any problems, that with standard cooling. The drivers provided very good functionality and ease of use for this card. The card comes with a TV-out port but the lack of a S-VHS to RCA cable lessens the amount of good that the TV-out port gives.

2D quality is good, but not as good as a Matrox G400. 3D quality on the other hand is excellent, with the quality of the textures produced in games being stunning. FSAA works very well and for games that it is best designed for gives a noticeable improvement in visual quality, especially with quincunx AA enabled.

3D gaming is very nice on this card as it's competitor, the Kyro II, only comes close in two of the eighteen tests, and even then its only at 1024*768. The VisionTek Xtasy gives extremely good performance in current games, such as Quake III, Unreal Tournament, and MDK2. In newer games it still provides good quality and is very 'playable' in my opinion at 1024*768 with high settings in Serious Sam 2, Max Payne, and Ballistics.

All in all this card performs better than the Kyro II, which though being about half the price doesn't always perform within 50% of the VisionTek. The price for the VisionTek Xtasy 6564 is great right now, as it is currently going for $250 (Canadian) which is about $155 US after a $79 rebate at .

Visiontek:

90%

Pros: Very nice performance in all games currently available, Good overclocking ability (results may vary), Great price, 3D Quality is excellent, Quincunx AA, Free PowerDVD.

Cons: 2D quality isn't top notch, TV-out doesn't come with cables, Either TV-out or Monitor can be used, not both. Very little 'value added' products in the box, Have to register to get PowerDVD.

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